Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett

Chasing Vermeer is not your typical mystery.  To love this book, you need to love quirky characters and schools that are not quite typical.  Luckily, I am a fan of both of these things.  Another element about this book that I found particularly nice was that it was a  mystery that ... actually requires detective work! In a lot of middle grade and young adult mysteries I have read lately, there is a lot of luck involved, a lot of stumbling across clues, a lot of providential happenstance.  I felt that in Chasing Vermeer Balliett did an excellent job of creating characters who were smart and used their brains to seek out answers.  Sure, there is going to be a little bit of happenstance helping every mystery along, but this one was a little more reminiscence of true detective mysteries like Holmes and Poirot.  

Without giving anything away, Petra and Calder are two students at a school on a university campus.  Their teacher is very in to letting them explore their own interests and designing their own learning experiences.  When a famous Vermeer painting not only goes missing, but is in danger, Petra and Calder dive into the mystery with enthusiasm and a little bit of adventure.  

I think that this book will appear to a lot of different types of readers.  The mystery crowd, obviously, will be shoe-ins for enjoying this title.  Calder's math and logic focused perspective could draw in readers who would normally rather solve a sudoku puzzle than pick up a book.  Additionally, it is a rare book that can equally capture the interests of the mathletes and artists amongst middle school readers - but the art history elements of this story definitely appealed to me and made me want to go out and learn a little more about Vermeer.

Excellent job all around, Balliett.  I'm looking forward to reading The Wright Three next.